This month, we’ll be rolling out Block Download for Anyoneand Organization sharing links as well as updating the MyAnalytics feature on OneDrive mobile. We’re also announcing that Camera Upload for OneDrive on Android is coming out of beta for all users!

Block Download for Anyone & Organization Links

Rolling out in late November

We are rolling out the Block Download feature for sharing links. With this feature, users will now be able to share a link to Office documents that can block recipients from the file, making copies of the file, copying text into other applications or printing. Even with these settings enabled, the user is still able to view the document in Office Online. Users can create links that block download by using the common sharing experience that exists across Office 365. By going into Link Settings they’ll be able to toggle the “block download” option for view-only links. This feature will begin rolling out in late November.

Block Download for sharing links

Updates to MyAnalytics on OneDrive for iOS & Android

Rolling out in late November

We are updating the MyAnalytics feature in the OneDrive for iOS & Android apps.

This feature now adds new entry points to the view count and context menus for individual files to make it easier to see everything that’s happening around your files. We are improving the service itself so that view counts are more accurate and will match the analytics that are available on OneDrive web. We are also removing the “File trending” signal in this release. You should start seeing these changes in your app in late November.

MyAnalytics Update for OneDrive mobile

Camera Upload on Android is now available!

Available Now

The Camera Upload feature for OneDrive on Android is now available for all customers! Once enabled, this feature will allow users to automatically upload all photos in the device Camera Roll to a selected OneDrive for Business account*. To enable this feature, go to the “Me” view from within your OneDrive for Business account and tap “Photos”. You will see a prompt like the one below, tap “Turn On” and read the ensuing prompts carefully. This will begin rolling out to customers later this month.

*Please note that OneDrive only supports one account (business or consumer) to be used at a time for the Camera Upload feature.

@Avian 1, there is no policy available to require Block Download on all sharing links. There are some conditional access policies that are similar though, which allow you to block download on un-managed devices for example.

@Maurits Knoppert, this is something we are looking at as well but Block Download for specific people will be coming a bit later. Stay tuned!

@Jacques Alexandre Bergeron, as announced at Ignite, we aqre working on expiration on a per site basis now (i.e. a user's access to everything on the site will expire at the same time). We are looking at per-link expiration as well. Definitely go submit/vote for this at onedrive.uservoice.com though!

Thanks for the feedback! Expiration should be in the roadmap now (I think it's called Expire externall access). Expiring individual links is not yet as we don't have any specific to share just yet. Thanks,

What about reverse option "Direct download link"? This would be helpful situations where any kind of preview is not needed, or where preview craps out (for example on Excel files larger than 30MB) and blocks any access to the file?

Hi @Senthilrajan Kaliyaperumal, on your first point, can you clarify a little further? On your second point, if a user is a member of a group that was shared to with block download, then the entire group will have the block download permission applied. You can share different links to different users if you want some to have block download and others to not.

@Tomasz Czerniejewski, this is something we've thought about but don't have anything specific to share. Definitely submit this to onedrive.uservoice.com though!

@Kevin Crossman, if the sharing link is the only method by which the user has access to the file, it should prevent them from downloading regardless of whether the user is in the Office web apps or in the library view. Hope that helps!

I didn't see an option to block download when sharing to specific people. I'm guessing this option is giving direct access to the content (versus a sharing link), and by doing so that person now can get to the content directly, and therefore no good way of blocking the download. In contrast, when giving out sharing links, you're giving access only to the document via office online (Word Online, PowerPoint Online, etc.) where you can easily block user from downloading. Is that correct assumption?

I see that photo upload is now available for OneDrive for Business, which is great but I have a question. How do I switch from uploading photos to my personal OneDrive over to OneDrive for Business? I have two accounts registered - personal and business - but I don't see a way to switch the photo uploads from one to the other. The Photos option is there under my business account but I don't see a way of turning off uploads to my personal account so I can enable my business account. It's likely obvious but I'm missing it somewhere. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm running the 5.21.1 release so that may explain why I can't turn this feature on. 5.22 is not showing as an available update here in Canada, at least not on the Rogers network on my Huawei P20 Pro so I'll wait for a bit until I can get the 5.22 release. I'll try again after that and will post back with my results.

Hi Fred_Brown. I found an APK mirror (be careful and selective if you go this path) where I found the latest beta version (5.23 from 11th of December 2018 - yesterday) and Photo Upload works fine on Android. I saw the same issue in version 5.21 and here in Denmark we are still stuck on the "old" version in the store. I have a client the needs the feature... Guess that he must wait or dare to go Beta.....

Thanks for the info. It's not super urgent for me yet so I think I'll wait until 5.22 or better is released here in Canada. It's unfortunate that there are differences in when updates of OneDrive are released on a country-by-country basis but so be it. I'm glad it works for you with 5.23, though. Fingers crossed we'll both get the released version soon - perhaps as an early Christmas present. :)

We are still in the process of rolling out 5.22. It's not country by country but it is a general staged rollout that does take time to proceed. We want to make sure things are right and work as intended before we roll it out completely! Until we complete our rollout, you can check out the feature earlier by enrolling in the beta as a user above mentioned.

This is great news. Will we be able at some point to allow editing online of a file while a download is blocked. I want to prevent a team member from downloading a copy of a Word document, making changes while others are editing the master file in the cloud, and then have to go back and integrate changes.

I can see "Block download" option now but only if I select to share with people inside the organisation. It also only becomes available if the option "Allow editing" is unticked. Why would it only be restricted to people within the organisation?

Block Download is currently only available for links that work for Anyone and links that work for People in Your Organization. We are planning to bring it to Specific People links in the future as well. Thanks!

When we evaluate a user's access on an item, we look at all the permissions that the user has and then give them the maximum permission they have. So on OneDrive, the Shared with Everyone folder gives everyone a higher permission which is superseding the block download permission on the link. And on SharePoint, if the user has Read access, then that will also supersede the block download permission. Hope that helps!

Is this share dialog being invoked from File Explorer? If so, I don't believe Block Download is available on that endpoint just yet. If you go to the OneDrive or SharePoint web though, it should show up. Thanks!